The present invention relates to a sewing system such as an embroidering system having a plurality of sewing machines and a host computer for controlling the plurality of sewing machines.
Recently, in factories for sewn products, a sewing system (e.g., an embroidering system) in which a plurality of sewing machines (e.g., embroidering machines) are controlled by a single host computer has been employed. In such a sewing system, the host computer is electrically connected to the plurality of sewing machines, and identifies each sewing machine and transmits various control commands to each of the plurality of sewing machines to create sewn products.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,896 discloses an embroidering system which is provided with a host controller connected with control units of a plurality of embroidering machines. The host controller is provided with a display device, an input device, and a control device. The control device stores image data and embroidery data corresponding to a plurality of embroidery patterns. A display screen of the display device is divided into a predetermined number of display areas on which the plurality of embroidery patterns are displayed. The plurality of embroidery patterns displayed on the plurality of the display areas are transmitted to a plurality of embroidering machines, respectively.
In the above-described conventional embroidering system, the host controller assigns identification numbers such as EM1, EM2, . . . , to the plurality of embroidering machines, and stores the assigned numbers for identifying each embroidering machine. When, for example, embroidery patterns to be embroidered by four embroidering machines, EM1, EM2, EM3 and EM4, are displayed on the display device, the identification numbers are also displayed.
Although the conventional embroidering system displays the identification numbers for a plurality of embroidering machines as described above, it was impossible to register names of the embroidering or sewing machines and display the same.
Sometimes, the operators of the sewing system (e.g., the embroidering system) assign a name to each embroidering machine, and call each sewing machine by the assigned name such as TOM, or the like. Even in such a case, the sewing system identifies each sewing machine only by the identification number, and accordingly it is sometimes difficult for the operators to relate the identification numbers to the assigned names. In a worse case, the operators may relate a wrong identification number to a certain name mistakenly, and refer to a wrong sewing machine.
It is unfavorable if a control command is transmitted from the host controller to a wrong sewing machine in view of safety in the facility since the sewing machine may malfunction, and further, quality of products may become worse. On the other hand, when a sewing system is newly installed in the sewn products factory, the sewing machines may not be assigned with names intrinsic to respective sewing machines. In such a case, in order to identify each sewing machine, the identification number should be assigned to each sewing machine.